Chinese Art

Anonymous, The Kangxi Emperor (1654-1722)

A Tang poem about the lotus in bloom, c. 1703.

Hanging scroll, ink on silk, 186.7 x 85.3 cm.

Palace Museum, Peking.

Historical Introduction

The study of any branch of art requires some acquaintance with the history of the people among whom the art was practised. This applies with additional force to China and to Chinese art, a still more distant and less familiar field of study. The native story of the development of Chinese culture makes it nearly as old as the civilisations of Egypt, Chaldea, and Susiana. These empires have long since culminated and disappeared below the horizon, while China has continued to exist, to work out its own ideas of art and ethics, and to elaborate the peculiar script which it retains today. The characters of the ancient Chinese script appear to have originated and developed in the valley of the Yellow River, and no connection has hitherto been satisfactorily traced with any other system of picture writing.

1. - Ancient Era

Our knowledge of the ancient empires of Western Asia has been widely increased by recent discoveries due to exploration of the ruins of cities and temples. There are undoubtedly many such relics of ancient China awaiting the spade of the future explorer along the course of the Yellow River and of its principal affluent, the Wei River, which runs from west to east through the province of Shensi, where the early settlements of the Chinese were situated. But they lie deeply buried beneath piles of river silt, blown to and fro by the wind to form the thick deposits of yellow loess which are so characteristic of these regions. It happens only occasionally that a site is laid bare by the river changing its course, or during the digging of canals for irrigation or other purposes, a fruitful source of the discovery of bronze sacrificial vessels and other antiquities. The Chinese attach the highest value to such relics of the ancient dynasties, although they are generally averse, for geomantic reasons, to any intentional disturbance of the soil for their discovery.

The legendary, not to be confused with the purely mythical, period begins with Fu Hsi (c. 2800 B.C.), the reputed founder of the Chinese polity. The second of the three ancient sovereigns, Chu Yung is chiefly celebrated as the conqueror of Kung Kung, the first rebel and the leader of a titanic insurrection in times of old, when he well-nigh overwhelmed the earth with a watery deluge. The third of the San Huang is Shen Nong Shi, the Divine Husbandman, who first fashioned timber into ploughs, and taught his people the art of husbandry. He discovered the curative virtues of herbs, and founded the first markets for the exchange of commodities. With the emperors Yao and Shun we stand on firmer ground, as they are placed by Confucius at the head of the Shu Ching, the classical annals compiled by him, and idealized as perfect models of disinterested rule for all time.

Yao set aside his own son, and called on the nobles to name a successor, when Shun was chosen; and Shun, in his turn, passing by an unworthy son, transmitted the throne to an able minister, the great Yu. Yu departed from these illustrious precedents and incurred the censure of converting the empire into a family estate, and since his time the hereditary principle has prevailed. Yu gained his great reputation by the success of vast hydrographic works which continued for nine years until the country was rescued from floods and finally divided into nine provinces. His labours are described in the Tribute of Yu which is found with some modifications in the Shu Ching compiled by Confucius, and in the first two of the dynastic histories - the Historical Memoirs of Ssu-ma Ch’ien (85 B.C.), and the Annals of the Former Han Dynasty by Pan Ku (92 A.D.). He is said to have cast nine bronze tripod vessels (ting) from metal sent up from the nine provinces to the capital, situated near Kaifeng Fu, in the province of Honan. These were religiously preserved for nearly 2,000 years as palladia of the empire. The great Yu is the former of the Hsia Dynasty in company with Chieh Kuei, a degenerate descendant and the last of the line, a monster of cruelty, whose iniquities cried out to heaven, until he was overthrown by Tang, the Completer and the founder of the new dynasty of Shang. The Hsia Dynasty was succeeded by the Shang, and the Shang by the Chou.

The Chou Dynasty, which began gloriously with the statecraft of King Wên and the military prowess of King Wu, was consolidated in the reign of King Ch’êng. The last was only thirteen years old when he succeeded, and the regency fell to his uncle Tan, the Duke of Chou, one of the most celebrated personages in history. Tan is ranked in virtue, wisdom, and honours as yielding place only to the great rulers of antiquity, Yao and Shun. He drew up the ordinances of the empire, directed its policy, and acted generally as guardian and presiding genius of the newly created line, during the reign of his brother King Wu, who conferred on him the principality of Lu, and during the first part of that of his nephew King Ch’êng.

The division of the country into hereditary fiefs, conferred upon scions of the royal house and representatives of the former dynasties, led to ultimate disaster. As the power of the surrounding feudatories increased, that of the central kingdom waned, until it was unable to withstand the assaults of the barbarous tribes on the south and west. King Hsüan, a vigorous ruler, resisted the invaders with success; but little more than ten years after his death, the capital was taken by the barbarian tribes, and in the year 771 B.C., his son and successor, King Yu, was slain. The reign of King Yu is memorable for the record in the canonical Book of Odes of an eclipse of the sun on the 29th of August 776 B.C, the first of a long line of eclipses, which give points of chronological certainty to subsequent Chinese history.

His son and successor reigned at the new capital, Lo Yang, and the dynasty, known henceforward as the Eastern Chou, remained there, although its authority gradually dwindled to a shadow, in spite of all the efforts of Confucius and Mencius to reassert its rightful claims. The barbarian invaders were meanwhile driven out by a combination of the two feudal States of Chin (Tsin) and Ch’in, and the old capital was ceded to the latter, which was destined in time to supplant the Chou.

During the seventh century B.C., the power of the empire was swayed by confederacies of feudal princes, and the period (685-591 B.C.) is known in history as that of the Wu Pa, or Five Leaders, who figured in succession as maintainers of the Government of the Son of Heaven.

This system of presiding chiefs, or rather of leading States, checked for a time the prevailing disorder; but it was succeeded by the period of the contending States, when the country was again devastated by civil wars, which continued for more than two centuries, until King Nan, in 256, surrendered finally to the Prince of Ch’in and brought the Chou Dynasty to an end.

Anonymous, Qin Shi Huang,

From a 19th c. Korean album, 19th c.

Paper, Folio. British Museum, London.

2. - Imperial Era

Qin Dynasty

King Cheng succeeded to the throne of Ch’in in 246 B.C., and in 221 B.C., after he had conquered and annexed all the other States, he founded a new and homogeneous empire on the ruins of the feudal system. He extended the empire widely towards the south, drove back the Hiung-nu Turks from the north, and built the Great Wall as a rampart of defense against these horse-riding nomads. He tried to burn all historical books, declared himself the First Divus Augustus and decreed that his successor should be known as the Second, the Third, and so forth, even down to the ten-thousandth generation. But his ambitious projects came to nothing, as his son, who succeeded as Erh Shih Huang Ti, or Emperor of the second generation, in 209 B.C., was murdered by the eunuch Chao Kao two years later, and in 206 his grandson, a mere child, gave himself up to the founder of the House of Han, Liu Pang, bringing with him the jade seals of State, and was assassinated a few years later.

The civilization of China during the three ancient dynasties would appear to have been, so far as we know, mainly, if not entirely, an indigenous growth. Towards the close of this period, in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., the Ch’in State (Shensi Province) extended its boundaries towards the south and west, and from its name was undoubtedly derived that of China, by which the country generally became known to the Hindus, Persians, Armenians, Arabs and Ancient Romans. About the same time or somewhat earlier, signs of an overland traffic with India, by way of Burma and Assam, appeared in the south-west, started by traders of the Shu State (Szechuan Province), by which route Hindu ideas of forest seclusion and asceticism penetrated and gave a marked colour to the early Taoist cult which sprang up in these parts.

Anonymous, Kublai Khan’s armies

lay siege to the Chinese fortress O-Chou,

Illustration 14th c.Book c. 1590. Paper, Folio.

Golestan Palace, Teheran.

Han Dynasty

The next dynasty, the Han, was the first to open up regular communication with western countries by sending Chang Ch’ien on a mission to the Yueh-ti, or Indo-Scythes, whose capital was then on the northern bank of the Oxus River. The envoy started in 139 B.C., was kept prisoner for ten years by the Hiung-nu Turks, who ruled Eastern Turkestan, but at last reached his destination through Ta Yuan (Fergana). Travelling through Bactria, he tried to return by the Khotan Lobnor route, but was again stopped by the Hiung-nu, until he finally escaped and got back to China in 126 B.C., after an absence of thirteen years. Chang Ch’ien found bamboo staves, cloth, and other goods offered for sale in Bactria, which he recognised as products of Szechuan, and was told that they were brought there from Shên-tu (India). He reported to the emperor the existence of this southwestern trade between China and India, and also the name of Buddha and of Buddhism as an Indian religion. The grape vine (pu-t’ao), the lucerne (Medicago sativa), the pomegranate from Parthia (Anhsi), and several other plants were introduced into China by him, and were cultivated in the Shang Lin Park at the capital.

The Emperor Wu Ti subsequently sent friendly embassies to Sogdiana, and to Parthia in the beginning of the reign of Mithradates II., and sent an army to Fergana in 102-100 B.C., which conquered the Kingdom of Ta Yuan, and brought back in triumph thirty horses (of classical fame). In the far south, Kattigara (Indochina China) was annexed in 110 B.C., given the Chinese name of Jih Nan, South of the Sun, and a ship was dispatched from that port to get a supply of the coloured glass of Kabulistan, which was becoming so highly valued at the Chinese court.

The official introduction of Buddhism followed in the year 67 A.D. The emperor Ming Ti, having seen in a dream a golden figure floating in a halo of light across the pavillion, was told by his council that it must have been an apparition of Buddha, and at once sent a special mission of inquiry to India. The envoys returned to the capital, Lo Yang, with two Indian monks, bringing with them Sanskrit books, some of which were forthwith translated, and pictures of Buddhist figures and scenes, which were copied to adorn the walls of the palace halls and of the new temple which was built on the occasion. This was called Pai Ma Ssu, the White Horse Temple, in memory of the horse which had carried the sacred relics across Asia, and the two Indian sramana lived there until they died. The subsequent influence of Buddhist ideals on Chinese art has been all-pervading, but there is no space to pursue the subject here.

In 97 A.D., the celebrated Chinese general Pan Ch’ao led an army as far as Antiochia Margiana, and sent his lieutenant Kan Ying to the Persian Gulf to take a ship there on an embassy to Rome, but the envoy shirked the sea journey and came back without accomplishing his mission. Roman merchants came by sea to Kattigara (Indochina China) in 166 A.D., appearing in the annals as envoys from the emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, and later arrivals of Roman traders were reported at Canton in 226, 284. Meanwhile, the overland route to the north, which had been interrupted by the Parthian wars, was re-opened, and many Buddhist missionaries came to Lo Yang from Parthia and Samarkand, as well as from Gandhara in Northern India.

Southern And Northern Dynasty

During the period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, when China, from the beginning of the fifth to nearly the end of the sixth dynasty, was divided, Buddhism flourished exceedingly. The Toba Tartars, who ruled the north, made it a state religion, and their history devotes a special book (Wei Shu, Ch. CXIV) to the subject, which gives an interesting account of the monasteries, pagodas, and rock sculptures of the time; with a supplement on Taoism under the heading of Huang Lao, i.e., the religion of Huang Ti and Lao Tzu. In the south the emperor Wu Ti of the Liang dynasty, who reigned (502-549) at Chien K’ang (Nanking), often put on the mendicant’s robes and expounded the sacred books of the law in Buddhist cloisters. It was in his reign that Bôdhidharma, the son of a king in Southern India, the 28th Indian and 1st Chinese patriarch, came to China in 520 A.D., and after a short stay at Canton settled at